good news.
Alone in his office, Conrad Dunn gazed once more at the picture of Margot hanging on the wall. Jillian Oglesby’s brows had, indeed, resembled Margot’s, but no matter what he did, he wouldn’t be able to replace them. Margot, after all, had been one in a million.
On the other hand, there might still be the possibility of re-creating Margot’s perfection.
Given the right bone structure.
And, of course, the right features.
TINA WONG STRODE into the Channel 3 newsroom, mentally organizing the details of the special report on the series of killings even as she spoke to everyone she passed. By the time she hit her desk, she already knew the order of the first dozen calls to make, decided who she’d recruit to help her assemble and edit the video, and made up her mind to direct the show herself. San Jose and San Diego had both been great — the mothers of both victims had shed more tears than even she would have tried to evoke, and the stepfather of the girl in San Diego had an expression on his face when he talked about his wife’s daughter that she was sure would put him very high on the suspects list if the cops were smart enough to watch her show.
She dropped her briefcase on the floor next to her desk, logged on to the computer, and checked her interoffice e-mail while sipping her coffee.
She’d asked for one of the editing bays from noon on, and it had been approved until 5:00 A.M. tomorrow morning, when the station would need all the editing bays to put together the morning news.
Excellent.
She forwarded that e-mail as a text message to Pete Biner, the cameraman she’d tapped to help her put the footage together. Pete was not only great with the camera, but remembered every frame of every sequence he’d ever shot, and always knew exactly where to find whatever she wanted. But even with his expertise, they’d take up the entire time they had, and probably need even more over the next couple of nights.
Still, though the pressure was starting to build, the special had been taking shape in her mind ever since Caroline Fisher’s murder, and on the way to San Jose she’d sketched out the introductory graphics, and come up with a few ideas about the music and sound effects as well. If she got it right — and she was damned sure she
She was about to make her first phone call when her office door slammed open and Michael Shaw stood in the doorway holding a sheet of paper. “Wait until you see this,” he said. “You’re not going to believe it.”
Tina picked up the single sheet he’d dropped on her desk. It was some kind of press release — not the kind of thing either she or Michael Shaw ever paid much attention to. “What’s so special about this one?”
“My ex-wife’s new husband is going to do a little reconstructive surgery on a very interesting charity case.”
Tina quickly scanned the release from the Dunn Foundation, her heart beating faster as she did.
A twenty-year-old girl from Bakersfield who had had her throat cut and her eyebrows torn off.
“Eyebrows,” Tina said. “So now we have breasts, ears, and eyebrows.” She looked up at Michael. “When was she attacked?”
He shook his head. “You know everything I know,” he said, indicating the brief press release.
“I’m going to need a helicopter to get up to Bakersfield,” Tina said, her schedule of phone calls forgotten as she grabbed her briefcase.
“No helicopter,” he declared. “Bakersfield is hardly more than two hours away.”
“But I’m in editing at noon,” she countered.
He shook his head firmly. “Sorry.”
“I don’t have time to argue with you, Michael,” she told him as she speed-dialed Pete Biner.
“You can take a van and Pete,” Michael said. “The editing bay will be waiting when you get back.”
“We’re going to need it tomorrow, too.”
Michael shook his head. “No.”
Tina’s eyes shot darts at him. “It’s either the helicopter or the bay, Michael. I only have so much time, so if I have to drive to Bakersfield and back—”
“All right, all right,” he said, holding up his hands to stem her flood of words. “I’ll see what I can do.”
But Tina was no longer even listening. She was on her phone. “Meet me in the parking lot in thirty seconds,” she was saying, and he knew she was talking to Biner. “We’re going to Bakersfield.” She snapped her phone shut. “You know, Michael,” she said, her eyes narrow, “if you’re not going to help me on this, you’d better at least stay out of my way.”
“Have a good trip,” he said, deciding to ignore the implied threat.
But Tina Wong was already halfway down the hallway.
Not that she would have cared what he said even if she’d heard him.
17
RISA CHECKED HER WATCH, DECIDED THAT STRETCHING DINNER WITH her husband and daughter even another five minutes could ruin the deal she’d been working on for the last week, and waved off the waiter who was about to refill her coffee cup. “Have to run,” she announced. “If the sunset’s any good at all tonight, I’ll be coming home with an offer. When the clients ask to see a house at night, you know you’ve almost got them. And this is a tough one — it’s practically a tear-down, and it’s six million.”
“Go get ’em,” Conrad said, squeezing her hand as she passed behind him.
She kissed Alison on the forehead. “I might be late.”
“I’ll still be up,” Alison sighed. “I’ve got tons of homework.”
“Okay. I’ll come in to say good-night.”
As if Risa’s departure was a signal, the waiter brought the check for Conrad to sign. “Would you mind if we stopped up at Le Chateau on the way home?” he asked Alison. “I’d like to check on a patient.”
“Really?” Alison said, eyeing her stepfather uncertainly. Though she’d been to his office in Beverly Hills, she had only heard about the house he kept up in the hills so the wealthiest — or most famous — of his patients could convalesce from their surgery in complete privacy. “I thought nobody but you and the patients got in there.”
“Me, my family, and the patients,” Conrad replied.
Fifteen minutes later he parked in a large garage under a house high in the hills of Bel Air that was almost directly below their own house, though you had to wind through almost a mile of twisting roads to get from one to the other. The elevator that carried them up from the garage opened directly into a reception area that looked to Alison like the lobby of a very expensive hotel. The floors were thickly carpeted, the walls paneled in walnut, and comfortable-looking chairs flanked either side of a fireplace in which gas logs were burning even though the evening wasn’t particularly cold. The room was softly lit, and a beautiful young woman sat at the mahogany reception desk, making notes in a file.
“Hi, Teresa,” Conrad said. “I’ve come to look in on Mrs. Wilson.” Teresa stood. “This is my stepdaughter, Alison Shaw,” he went on, then turned to Alison. “This is Teresa, our evening nurse.”
Teresa smiled and extended her hand to Alison.
“See if you can keep Alison occupied until I get back.” A moment later Conrad disappeared back into the elevator.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Teresa said. “I just need to make a couple of entries in this chart.”
While Teresa went back to her file, Alison wandered over to a credenza covered with framed photographs of women. Beautiful women. “Are these some of Conrad’s patients?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Teresa said. She opened a drawer and brought out a photo album. “Here’s some more — except these have before pictures, too. And believe me when I tell you this is one album that never leaves this room.”
Alison took the album, dropped into one of the chairs by the fireplace, and began turning pages, gazing at before-and-after photographs of face-lifts, tummy tucks, breast augmentations and reductions, and dozens of other
